Freed
by Ancalime8301
Summary: Watson is unexpectedly freed from the abuse he'd long suffered at the hands of Holmes and he finds his feelings for the woman who'd cared for him and his children extend farther than just appreciation. Sequel to "Confined".


A/N: Sequel to my story "Confined"

* * *

_Freed_

"Emilie?" His voice was rough with disuse and his throat ached, but at least he could make himself heard.

"Shh," she said, leaning over him and helping him sip from a glass.

"Who is watching the children?" he asked fretfully when he'd drunk his fill.

"My mother and sister are watching them," she replied, then added softly, "all of them."

"All of them?" Watson repeated faintly. "You mean the others have come back?"

"It seemed like a good idea to have the elder children meet their younger siblings, and to have them on hand in case . . . " she trailed off and looked away, blushing slightly.

"In case I didn't make it," he said heavily. "How long have I been ill?"

"Several weeks." She hesitated, then said quickly, "There is a large man staying in the village who wishes to see you. He wanted to stay here but I wouldn't let him."

"Why not?"

"He looks too much like Him and claims to be His brother. He has been most generous with his money and has spent a good deal of time observing the children, but I do not trust him."

Holmes' brother, Mycroft. Watson shared Emilie's suspicion of him, and wondered why he should come now. "You have acted wisely. I will see him, but not yet."

"No, you are not strong enough," she agreed. "Rest, and I will have some food prepared for when you wake."

There were so many things he still wished to ask, to know, but he had been weak even before his long illness and the effort of their conversation had drained him. He was asleep as soon as his eyes were closed.

For the better part of a week he woke only briefly, long enough to eat or drink a small amount and ask about the children before going to sleep again. Emilie was always by his side when he opened his eyes and she tended him with the utmost care.

After that week he was able to stay awake for longer periods of time and even tried sitting up a bit. He told Emilie he was ready to see Mycroft, but she did not seem willing to subject him to that much exertion just yet, for days passed without Holmes' brother appearing at his bedside.

Then he woke from a late morning nap to find Mycroft where Emilie usually sat, watching him with that same uncanny gaze that Holmes would turn upon him to make him feel like his very soul was laid bare.

"I know you wonder why I am here," Mycroft said, getting straight to the point without Watson saying a word. "I must confess I was ignorant of Sherlock's misdeeds until your story made it to the London papers."

Watson winced.

"I came here as soon as I could make arrangements to be away and arrived in time for the verdict from the coroner's court. Your nanny Emilie has reluctantly told me a good deal of what you endured, but I wish to hear your tale of what happened."

Watson took his glass of water from the bedstand and stared down at it without speaking.

"But of course, I'm forgetting something. I want you to know in no uncertain terms, my dear Doctor, that I am deeply sorry I did not intervene. I should have been able to tell he was hiding something from me, especially since he never brought you or the children to London with him, but I was regrettably blind in this matter. Sherlock has left behind a tidy sum in the bank that will be yours to command, and I will add to it whatever is necessary for the care and education of all of your youngsters."

Mycroft fell silent after that as if waiting for Watson's response. Watson glanced up at him and found he did appear sorrowful, but he was used to Holmes' duplicitousness. "You must not take it personally that I cannot take you at your word," he said slowly. "Holmes said many things that he did not mean."

"I am grieved to hear it, but I understand completely. I will seek to earn your trust in every way I can."

Watson nodded and returned to staring at his water glass, shifting it slightly and watching the water ripple and move. "What do you wish to know?" he asked with a heavy sigh.

"Everything," Mycroft responded promptly. "I am particularly interested in what led up to the shooting."

Watson drank the water in his glass as he thought. "I suppose it started with my last successful pregnancy," he said finally.

Mycroft took the pitcher from the bedstand and refilled Watson's glass. "With young Ivy," he said.

A brief smile flitted across his face. "Yes, with Ivy," he confirmed. "I had been ill and was still recovering when I became pregnant. I was never entirely well in the months before she was born and I had some side effects that I'd never had before. I remained in bed the last six weeks before the birth, which was long and difficult. Ivy was healthy but I was not; I came down with a fever afterward and it lingered for nearly eight weeks.

"Holmes didn't let the fever deter him and I didn't try to resist. I'd never been able to fight him off and at the time I could barely walk the length of the room unaided. He stayed close to me at all times until he was certain his attentions had produced the desired result. Then he left for nearly a month. Let's see, Ivy was about five months old when he left."

Watson took a drink of water, closed his eyes, and sighed as he rubbed his face wearily. "I miscarried while Holmes was away. I wasn't sorry. Ivy was demanding and I was so very tired. My mistake was not telling Holmes as soon as he returned, but I badly needed the reprieve.

"It took six weeks for him to realize that something was amiss. He confronted me while I was nursing Ivy. I told him what had happened and he became angry and accused me of intentionally lying to him. Then he struck me repeatedly in the face."

He took a deep breath and stared at the wall opposite the bed. "Of all the things he'd done to me, the control, the neglect, the restraints, the hateful things he said, he'd never hit me like that before. I couldn't move, I was so shocked. He just stared at me, his fist raised as if to strike again. He must have seen my fear-I couldn't hide it-and his expression changed into something hateful. He didn't look like Holmes anymore." He swallowed with some effort and said softly, "For the first time I truly feared for my life."

Watson grasped his glass more tightly to hide the shaking of his hands. A glance at his audience revealed that Mycroft was pale, though with anger or something else he couldn't tell.

"He did not hit me again, but the threat was always there and I knew perhaps even better than he did what he was capable of. I endeavored to be compliant and obedient, and by the time Ivy was a year old I was pregnant again. I felt unwell enough that I had to have Emilie take Ivy so I could rest, but she brought the girls to see me every day.

"I lost the baby late enough to see that it was a boy, but early enough that Holmes was deprived of most of the things he enjoyed about me being pregnant. He was quite angry and cut off my access to the girls. I could see him and no one else.

"Holmes devoted himself to getting me pregnant again, as usual, but when he was not in my room I did what I could to move around and regain my strength. I wholly regretted not taking Emilie's advice to leave when I could, for now I desperately wished to leave but could not.

"This miscarriage occurred within a month of knowing I was pregnant again. There was a good deal of bleeding, more than with the others, and what strength I had gained was lost in trying to recover. I think all of the blood worried Holmes. He agreed to allow me to pass a month unmolested and let Emilie and the girls visit again.

"For a time, it was almost like I had the old Holmes back, the Holmes I knew and loved in London. But when the months started to pass and I hadn't conceived, his demeanor altered completely. I tried to tell him that I was getting too old, I'd had too many problems with the last few so trying for another was unwise, but he threatened to beat me soundly if I talked back again. He cuffed me to the bed and forced himself upon me over and over and over . . . "

His voice trailed off as he tried to breathe, to fight the remembered panic gripping his chest in a vise, and he shook his head forcefully to drive the memories back to a safe distance.

Mycroft's hand settled itself gently on his arm. "You have said more than enough, you don't need to continue," he said reassuringly.

Watson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No, I'm nearly done. You deserve to know how he died."

"I know enough to satisfy me," Mycroft replied. "You don't need to torture yourself in the telling."

"Just let me finish," Watson insisted. Mycroft did not interrupt again "It was months before anything happened, but I knew right away when it had because I couldn't keep any food down. For weeks I could barely eat or drink and from how terrible I felt I knew there had to be something wrong with the baby.

"For a while it seemed I was wrong-the first movements started when they should have, and the constant nausea began to ease a little bit. But then the movement ceased entirely around the sixth month. My water broke soon after, but labor did not begin for over a week. By then I knew the child must have perished, and I developed a fever.

"I was nearly delirious by the time I delivered the stillborn child. My memories are scattered at best after that, though I did have some passing moments of lucidity.

"It was in one of those moments that I opened my eyes to find Holmes standing beside the bed, loading a revolver. I asked him what he was doing and he looked at me with hate in his eyes. 'You have failed me for the last time,' he said.

"Then he was on the bed, his knees straddling my thighs and the revolver pressing the skin in the middle of my forehead. He said, 'I'm told there's no possibility of you bearing another child after this, so I am doing what anyone would do with a useless animal: I'm putting you down.'"

Watson took a shuddering breath and wiped away the tears that had begun to trickle down his cheeks. "I don't know exactly what happened after that. I only know that I was frantic with fear and I tried to wrest the gun away from him. It must have gotten turned around as we struggled, because then it was in my hands and it was pointed straight at him.

"Once I pulled the trigger I couldn't stop. I kept firing until the barrel was empty and Holmes had collapsed backward and fallen off the side of the bed. I passed out, and everything between that and when I woke up a week and a half ago is lost to me."

A heavy silence fell over them after Watson finished his tale. Watson finished the water in his glass and carefully set the empty glass on the bedstand, his hands still shaking. Mycroft watched him with what could only be described as sorrow in his eyes. "I am deeply sorry for everything my brother inflicted upon you," Mycroft said heavily. "Please let me know the instant you need anything and I will do all I can to help."

"Thank you," Watson murmured gratefully.

Mycroft pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. "I have taken up too much of your time and you ought to be resting. Your Emilie knows where to find me if I'm needed."

'Your Emilie.' Watson pondered the way he'd said it even as he drifted to sleep.

The next several weeks were quite overwhelming to Watson's still weak constitution. When it wasn't the authorities asking for his official statement-just for the record, since the verdict had already been decided thanks to Emilie's testimony-it was spending time with his children or speaking with Mycroft about arrangements for his eldest two to be enrolled in boarding school or arguing with himself about whether to stay in the house or find a new one somewhere else . . . It was exhausting but he relished every minute because it meant he was alive and all six of his children were well.

As soon as he was strong enough he moved to a different bedroom on the ground floor and had Mycroft arrange for everything in his old room to be replaced. He could stay in the house so long as he didn't have to face the furnishings that surrounded him in his misery. Once the bedroom was refurbished, it would be a guest room, most likely for Mycroft, who unexpectedly showed a keen interest in stepping into the role of benevolent and kindly uncle.

Faithful Emilie, 'his' Emilie, was his constant companion as the household adjusted to life without Holmes and she spent a fair bit of time encouraging him to rest so he would be equal to the task. She was frequently a source of excellent advice, particularly where the children were concerned.

When Mycroft left to return to London, he promised to return but assured Watson that he was in capable hands. He said it with a wink and Watson could only wonder what he might mean.

The weather grew warm and the children often played outside under Emilie's watchful eye. There was nothing Watson liked better than to sit in the untended back garden and watch his sons and daughters romp in the long grass. The older four invented their own games while Emilie helped the two younger girls make mud pies or braid strands of grass together to make crowns. These were often brought to him with smiles and giggles and he obligingly let Ivy or Agnes drape a grass crown on his head while Emilie grinned.

It was during one of these idyllic afternoons that he found his eyes following Emilie rather than the children. She threw back her head and laughed at something one of the girls said, a few strands of her dark hair tugged out of her neat bun and tossed against her face by the breeze, and he realized as if for the first time that she was an attractive woman. He'd thought of her as the nanny (and midwife) for so long, but now he was seeing her simply as a woman, one who had helped him, cared for him, and encouraged him for well over ten years.

He was really very fond of her.

His observation continued at dinner, staring shamelessly down the table at her without realizing it until Emilie glanced up and caught him. He flushed and looked away quickly, then peeked in her direction to see she was also blushing as she stared determinedly at her food. He spent the rest of the evening contemplating why he'd felt a sudden jolt of hope when he saw her blush.

As Watson recovered and he was able to join his youngest daughters in their play (the activities of the older set involved too much running for him to participate as yet), he was in even closer contact with Emilie. He'd always known she did a good job with the children, but now he admired her deft handling of them and the way she subtly encouraged them to seek his attentions as well. That meant more to him than he could say, especially when Ivy crawled into his lap one afternoon and promptly fell asleep.

By the time summer ended Watson was well enough to go on walks with his troop. Their usual destination was the shoreline, roughly a mile away from the estate. Sometimes they even took a picnic lunch and stayed at the shore for several hours, until young faces began to show evidence of sunburn and tempers grew short. Watson became fairly adept at recognizing the early signs that they should head for home, but Emilie was far more gifted at heading off squabbles before any major damage was done.

The arrival of fall brought a new round of adjustments as Henry and Louise, his two eldest children, went off to boarding school. The twins, Charles and Chelsea, were not happy about losing their playmates in such a fashion, so Watson devoted himself to locating appropriate materials in the rather extensive library (Holmes at least had good taste in books) and keeping them occupied with educational pursuits for several hours of each day while the other two napped. It was a more challenging task than he'd originally anticipated, but he found it quite stimulating. He'd not had to think so hard in a terribly long time.

As time passed, Watson became more and more certain that his feelings toward Emilie were no longer limited to their working relationship. But he was self-conscious about all that she knew and had seen, and was not at all confident in his interpretation that she felt the same way toward him. He had thought Holmes loved him, too.

So he turned his attention to the approaching Christmas holiday, determined to celebrate it properly to make up for all the years the holiday was overlooked by the household. He told Emilie to confer with the cook (her older sister) about the menu and how to decorate, with complete freedom to buy anything that was needed. He took responsibility for finding gifts for the children, but nothing available in the village nearby seemed quite what he wanted, plus he recognized several items from birthday gifts Emilie had bought the children during the previous year.

Watson decided to go to London. It wasn't until he was on the train that he began to panic, realizing how long it had been since he'd gone anywhere by himself.

Disembarking in London amidst the throngs of hurried people bustling about was a complete shock. It was like he'd never seen so many people in one place before, never mind that he used to live in London a dozen years ago. He let himself be propelled along and was pushed out onto the street where the crowds were even thicker as many people went about their own holiday shopping.

Dazed, Watson hailed a cab and gave the driver the Baker Street address, hoping Mrs. Hudson still lived there.

She did. She was overjoyed to see him and immediately bustled him into the kitchen for some tea. They chatted for some time about her difficulty keeping decent lodgers since he and Holmes had left and how Mycroft was keeping her up to date about the children. He apologized for not thinking to write and she waved it off, saying he'd had far more important things to think about.

He told her why he was in London, which turned into asking her advice about Emilie. He confessed everything while Mrs. Hudson nodded and patted his hand. When he'd said as much as he wanted to admit to, including the fact that she'd given him a ring to have cleaned in London but the ring didn't even look dirty, she asked bluntly, "How much longer are you going to make her wait on you?"

Watson blushed all the way up to his hairline. "I was planning to buy a ring here in London," he admitted sheepishly.

"There's a good lad. Now come on, we haven't any time to waste if we're going to buy everything today," she said, bustling about to clean up the tea things, then untying her apron.

The crowds didn't seem as overwhelming with Mrs. Hudson at his side, and they were able to find gifts for the children fairly easily. Emilie was a different matter. Watson spent quite some time considering his options before choosing a locket as her Christmas gift and a simple but lovely ring.

He stayed overnight with Mycroft and caught the train back to Sussex the next morning. As the scenery flashed by the window, he thought about Mrs. Hudson and resolved to propose that she be the replacement when the part-time housekeeper left to be married.

The last fortnight before the holiday passed in a flash. The two students returned from boarding school, breathless with stories about their new friends and what they were learning despite the weekly letters they'd been sending home. The house was transformed with greenery and bows and a small pine tree took up residence in the sitting room, decorated with a variety of ornaments by six pairs of eager hands. Mycroft arrived two days before Christmas, grumbling good-naturedly that he didn't believe in frivolous things like holidays, but Watson noticed he came with several parcels that looked suspiciously like presents.

In all that time, Watson carried a certain little box in his pocket, waiting for an opportunity he knew would come (and was afraid he'd overlook when it did come). As it turned out, he didn't need to worry; the appropriate moment was perfectly obvious when it arrived.

On Christmas Eve the children were finally in bed and Watson had just finished setting out the gifts beneath the tree when he decided to find Emilie and ask if there was anything he could do to help ready things for Christmas dinner. He wandered in the direction of the kitchen and was just about to peek into the dining room to look for her when she abruptly appeared in the doorway to the dining room.

"Did you need any help?"

"No, we've done all we can for now," Emilie replied, meeting his eyes briefly then looking away with a blush. "I . . . just finished decorating," she said, shyly pointing up.

Mistletoe graced the lintel above their heads.

There was, of course, only one thing any self-respecting gentleman could do, and this particular gentleman was not about to hesitate. Watson promptly leaned toward her even as she did the same; their first attempt was the merest brush of lips. Mutual wordless agreement resulted in a much more satisfactory second go at it, which turned into an extended period of trying various angles and variations as their bodies pressed closer together.

After a while, Watson murmured, "I wasn't sure you-"

"Oh, yes," she said without letting him finish.

He drew away enough to dig in his pocket with one hand. "Will you marry me?" he asked, his mouth suddenly dry as he held up the small box.

"I thought you'd never ask," she said with a grin, not bothering with the box as she slipped her arms around his neck.

That, of course, set off another round of kissing and it was quite a while before the box was opened and the ring was admired and found to be a perfect fit and he was thanked with still more kisses.

After the gifts were opened the next morning and the children were absorbed in their new belongings, Mycroft pulled Watson and Emilie aside. With a pointed glance at the ring on her finger, he reached into his jacket and withdrew a rolled up paper tied with a ribbon. "This is for both of you."

Watson untied the ribbon and Emilie unrolled the thick sheet of paper. "It's . . . a marriage license," Watson said dumbly while Emilie just stared.

"A special marriage license," Mycroft corrected. "I think you've waited quite long enough already, but of course you're free to decide when to sign this and make it official."

"But these cost a fortune," Emilie protested.

"I have my ways, my dear," Mycroft said with a wink and a knowing smile.

Emilie wanted to wait until they'd gotten a ring for Watson and Watson gratefully agreed. He was rather overwhelmed already by how quickly things were progressing. Not to mention that they'd need to explain it to the children (who would not object, most likely, since they were all very fond of Emilie).

They made it official as the village church bell rang in the new year with Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, and Emilie's mother and sister as witnesses. The rest of Emilie's family would converge on the house at daybreak to prepare for a grand party for them starting at lunchtime. Facing all of her relations would be a challenge, though he'd met quite a few of them already over the previous year and Emilie assured him they all heartily approved of him.

But for now, he and Emilie were shooed with laughter and encouragement toward his bedroom as soon as the ink was dry. Watson took Emilie's hand in his and led her out of the dining room, making sure to stop beneath the still-hanging mistletoe on their way out. She laughed as he tugged her down the hallway and he grinned, not ashamed in the slightest.

The ring on his finger felt strange, but he would get used to it. He cherished what it represented.

They had very little rest that night and Watson truly couldn't have been happier.


End file.
